In the sixth inning, an Arizona team that seemingly can do no wrong finally did. In the sixth inning, a Dodgers team that seemingly can’t catch a break finally did.

And while it didn’t exactly turn the National League West on its ear – it’s probably too late for that, anyway – it did turn this latest edition of the Dodgers’ most important game of the season firmly in their favor, spurring them to a 7-4 victory over the Diamondbacks before 54,014 on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

And back onto the fringes of a division race that as recently as a few days ago didn’t appear to involve the Dodgers in any way.

With Nomar Garciaparra’s seventh home run of the season having tied the game at 4-4 with two outs, Russell Martin stepped in against Arizona right-hander Doug Davis and hit a routine grounder up the middle. Diamondbacks shortstop Stephen Drew took a few steps to his left and reached down, but somehow, the ball ticked off his glove and skipped into shallow center field, allowing Martin to reach on Drew’s 15th error of the season.

With Martin on first, Matt Kemp then poked a triple into the right-field corner, scoring Martin with the go-ahead run.

Andre Ethier, who had been robbed of what would have been a monumental, two-run single just an inning earlier by Arizona first baseman Conor Jackson’s spectacular, lunging catch, this time yanked one where Jackson couldn’t get to it, and Kemp jogged home with the insurance run.

Two innings later, Ethier pulled another single to almost the same spot to score Garciaparra with the backbreaker. Garciaparra, in the starting lineup for the first time since Tuesday because his tender left calf doesn’t allow him to play in the field every day, went 3-for-4 with a double and a home run.

The Diamondbacks, who came to town having won seven of their previous eight games and having played at a .632 clip since the All-Star break, probably aren’t going to blow the three-game lead they have methodically built atop the division. But if Drew’s untimely fielding gaffe doesn’t bring calamity upon his own team, for one night at least, it brought an amazing sense of renewal to the Dodgers, who are finally seeing some tangible results from having won 12 of their last 18 games.

They also dealt successfully with what probably was the toughest of the three Diamondbacks starters they will face in this weekend series. Davis has been one of the league’s hottest pitchers over the second half, going 8-1 with a 3.84 ERA before taking the mound in this one. But while his teammates staked him to leads of 1-0 in the top of the first, 2-1 in the top of the fourth and 4-2 in the top of the fifth, Davis gave all three of them back in the bottom halves of those same innings.

Thanks to Drew’s error, he gave back more than that in the bottom of the sixth, an inning Davis (13-12) didn’t survive.

The third-place Dodgers moved to within 4<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2 games of the Diamondbacks in the NL West, which probably is still too big a deficit to make up with 15 games remaining. The Dodgers remained static in the wild card, 1<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2 games behind San Diego after the Padres rallied from a ninth-inning deficit to beat San Francisco, and Philadelphia remained tied with the Dodgers after winning at New York. And while Colorado fell two behind the Dodgers in both races, those two teams will play seven times over the next two weeks.

The Dodgers got a gutty performance from starter Brad Penny, who minimized the damage in a potentially disastrous first inning in which he threw 36 pitches, hit a batter and walked another with the bases loaded after starting him off 0-and-2. Penny came back from that to strike out Chris Young and Drew in succession, punctuating the last one by looking skyward, yelling something that only he could hear over the din of the crowd and pumping his right fist.

Penny (16-4) never came close to dominating. But he did manage to stick around for five innings, allowing himself to match his career-high victory total of last season with three starts still to come. Takashi Saito got a rare eighth-inning call, but needed just one pitch to get Miguel Montero to ground into an inning-ending double play. Saito then worked around a ninth-inning walk to record his 39th save.

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